Zweitligist 1. FC Kaiserslautern is in sixth place in the table. A guarantor for the success is defender Boris Tomiak.
VfL Osnabrück and 1. FC Kaiserslautern played a crazy game on Sunday afternoon in front of 15,741 fans at Bremer Brücke. For a long time, VfL looked like the sure winner, led 2-0 at one point and had an outstanding goalkeeper in Lennart Grill, who saved two penalties.
But then came the 98th minute: With the last action of the game, Kaiserslautern was awarded a corner kick, which Philipp Klement crossed into the middle. There, center back Boris Tomiak rose highest and actually headed the ball, which was still deflected, into the net for the 2:2 equalizer. What followed was pure ecstasy in the visitors’ block of around 2000 FCK fans. It was Tomiak’s first goal of the season – and an important one.
The central defender was one of his team’s best outfield players, and not just because of his first goal of the season. The 25-year-old had 76 touches on the ball, made 88 percent of his passes to his teammates, won almost 70 percent of his duels and ran over ten kilometers. In addition, Tomiak took a penalty in injury time, which was awarded by Terrence Boyd.
So it was no surprise that the 1.93-meter man was voted into the “Kicker” eleven of the matchday. This was the second time in a row that he had received this award, and Tomiak also played strongly in the previous week against Hansa Rostock (3:1) (grade: 2.0) and was named to the matchday eleven. In a league-wide comparison, only Laszlo Benes (Hamburger SV) and Haris Tabakovic (Hertha BSC, both 3) have been nominated more often in the still young season.
Tomiak was born in Essen and played for RWE
Tomiak has been under contract with the Palatinate side (81 competitive games, 10 goals) since 2021. He immediately became an important performer in the defense and managed the promotion to the 2nd league with the traditional club in 2022. It is impossible to imagine FCK’s starting eleven without him.
From 2009 to 2013 and 2016 to 2019, the defensive hero played for Rot-Weiss Essen and took his first steps at senior level in his hometown, but was never able to really assert himself, so that his contract, which expires in 2019, was not extended.
From today’s perspective, this was a mistake, because with a market value of 1.20 million euros (transfermarkt.de), Boris Tomiak is now one of the most valuable players at 1. FC Kaiserslautern. But: At the time, only very few people would have believed that the boy from Essen would have made such a steep rise.
